Does anybody know if there is any kind of handicap rating for racing a kiteboard against sailboats? I've seen a video on Youtube (i'll try to find a link) of a couple of kites racing against a fleet of boats.

I don't have other kiters to race against here, but there is a group of casual beach cat racers who do mostly beach starts out around a buoy and back to the beach. I thought it might be fun to race against them once I figure out how to tack.

Has anyone tried racing in an organized sailboat race with a kiteboard?

davesails7 wrote:Does anybody know if there is any kind of handicap rating for racing a kiteboard against sailboats? I've seen a video on Youtube (i'll try to find a link) of a couple of kites racing against a fleet of boats.

I don't have other kiters to race against here, but there is a group of casual beach cat racers who do mostly beach starts out around a buoy and back to the beach. I thought it might be fun to race against them once I figure out how to tack.

Has anyone tried racing in an organized sailboat race with a kiteboard?

I doubt you'd need much of a handicap. Obviously I do not know, and you did not mention what type of sailboats. If they are hobies, I would not worry about that. I'd be mostly concerned about tangles or falling right in front of one.

Racing against other windsurfer types and boat type is possible using a handicap system. The most widely recognised handicap system in the world is the Portsmouth Yardstick. Formula boards commonly sail with a handicap equivalent to the 18foot skiff. Currently this is a handicap of 685.

Handicap in sailing is generally a ratio for speed over distance. Using the rating combined with distance of the race a slower boat will correct to the same time as a faster boat if both are sailed to the same standard. That is the idea anyway. Kites are raced scratch. First over the line wins no handicap. Might be hard to handicap a kiteboard. Depends on the coarse. Standard windward leward on average you might start with the same rating as a formula windsurfer. Try sailing head to head with the fastest boat class and figure out how you do on average.

Racing against other windsurfer types and boat type is possible using a handicap system. The most widely recognised handicap system in the world is the Portsmouth Yardstick. Formula boards commonly sail with a handicap equivalent to the 18foot skiff. Currently this is a handicap of 685.

Dave, I would go with this info. Portsmouth rating system is widely recognized and all the beach cats you mentioned would have a portsmouth rating.

The 685 would be a lofty number for you to be competitive at the beginning, but you would quickly gage how far off the pace of the top formula board sailors you are. Obviously having your tacks down would make a huge difference.

ac45's is the fastest class of racing boat on the water (until they build the ac72's which are supposed to launch in June or July), absolutely ridiculous, but it takes a crew of 5 to make it scream. A tornado olympic class cat (59.0 portsmouth yardstick handicap) is also supposed to be faster than a kiteboarder on a high performance board, while a 49'er seems a bit slower (68.2 handicap), but of course a 49'er is blinding fast compared to any other single hulled centerboard boats in the water. To get an idea of how fast an ac45 is, on a 500 meter course one of the Oracle racing teams did 21 knots in winds of 8-9 knots, 24 mph in winds less than 10 mph.

edt wrote:ac45's is the fastest class of racing boat on the water (until they build the ac72's which are supposed to launch in June or July), absolutely ridiculous, but it takes a crew of 5 to make it scream. A tornado olympic class cat (59.0 portsmouth yardstick handicap) is also supposed to be faster than a kiteboarder on a high performance board, while a 49'er seems a bit slower (68.2 handicap), but of course a 49'er is blinding fast compared to any other single hulled centerboard boats in the water. To get an idea of how fast an ac45 is, on a 500 meter course one of the Oracle racing teams did 21 knots in winds of 8-9 knots, 24 mph in winds less than 10 mph.

From the Olympic trials last month.
"Some of the sailors were equipped with GPS devices to keep record of the upwind and downwind speeds, and it turned out that the racing equipment goes upwind with app. 15 knots and downwind with app. 25 knots - in 6-8 knots windspeed this means four times the speed of the wind and is a performance formerly known only by multi-million-dollar Americas Cup yachts."